Nearly
one in five Britons of working age, and more than a quarter of all Britons,
are disabled.

Mayor of London Boris
Johnson promised after the Beijing Olympics that London will be the most
accessible and inclusive city ever to host the Games. You can click
here to watch him reiterating that promise in 2011. (We are
pleased to announce that, after Spasticus highlighted
the lack of sub-titles and BSL interpretation, these have now been added.)

If you are one of
the millions of people desperately trying to find out anything about accessible
visitor facilities, visit the official www.InclusiveLondon.com
for details of facilities which at least abide by European anti-discrimination
laws.

If
you want to find out how inclusive and accessible London really is, read
on.

London has the least
accessible taxi fleet in the UK. Despite this, London’s ‘Black’
taxis are consistently awarded the contracts for disabled passengers’
discount schemes, rather than opening these up to private hire firms who
would operate vehicles that are much more widely accessible as well as
considerably cheaper.The
cost of this 'service' for disabled people has risen considerably over
the past two years as subsidies have been withdrawn.

The vast majority
of London’s tube stations are not accessible to wheelchair users
and other disabled people with mobility difficulties - only 65 out of
270 stations have step-free access from the street to the platforms. (The
only fully accessible train line is the Docklands Light Railway.) Charities
also criticise the so-called accessible routes: click
here to find out more.

Current proposals
by London Underground to close weekday District line services to Kensington
Olympia will remove the only fully step-free interchanges between Underground
and Overground services in the area. The Transport for All organisation
says: "These proposals fly in the face of disabled people’s
right to equal access."

When he came into
power, Mayor of London Boris Johnson cancelled plans to make a number
of tube stations accessible, in order to offset the costs of cancelling
the road congestion charge scheme in Kensington and Chelsea. £20
million worth of preparation work was simply written off. Of
45 tube stations that former mayor Ken Livingstone promised would be step-free
by 2013, work on 22 is to be deferred, while another two will only see
partial improvements. In June 2012, Transport for London finally admitted
that there will be zero investment in step-free access over the next three
years.

Only 14,000 of London's
19,000 bus stops are accessible, meaning that even when buses are accessible,
passengers often can't get on them.

New Routemaster buses,
due to come into service in 2012 to replace the fully accessible 'bendy
buses' as part of Boris Johnson's election promises, have been criticised
for being inaccessible to powered wheelchair users. The Transport
for All website states: "The wheelchair space whilst meeting
official regulations that refer to the dimensions of a ‘reference
wheelchair’ does not seem to be able to accommodate larger wheelchairs
including electric ones. Manoeuvring skills of a paralympian basket ball
player seem to be required to get yourself into the space." £8
million has been spent so far on developing five prototypes.

‘Heritage’
bus routes in London – those most popular with tourists –
are allowed to operate buses that are inaccessible to wheelchair users
and other people with mobility difficulties.

'Dial-a-Ride' travel
provision for disabled Londoners who can't use public transport has been
significantly reduced over the past two years, and costs have risen sharply.
This has left many disabled people trapped at home.

Disabled people regularly
complain of their treatment at London's airports. Xavier Gonzalez, chief
executive of the International Paralympic Committee, said recently: “Just
like the many passengers with a disability who fly on a daily basis, our
athletes regularly experience unnecessary problems travelling through
airports and with airlines. This should not be the case when we are striving
for equality in society. This summer, 4,200 athletes will be travelling
to London for the biggest ever Paralympic Games. The experience they have
travelling on airlines and through airports could shape how they view
the success of the games, regardless of their athletic performance.”

Disabled people leaving
or entering the country should particularly beware of Ryanair, who have
continually faced court proceedings for their treatment of disabled passengers
and refusal to allow them onto flights. Unfortunately the company has
sole rights to many routes between the UK and the rest of Europe and are
based at London Stansted, the airport closest to the main Games venues.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: All of Barcelona's buses and metro trains are accessible, and the
majority of its metro stations now have lift access. 100% of Vancouver's
Translink system is accessible. WHY NOT Keep Olympia station open; reinstate
plans to extend tube access; make the bus system truly inclusive; reinstate
subsidies to alternative transport providers; and open up the Taxi Card
system to real competition?

PARKING

The European Blue
Badge parking scheme for disabled drivers is not recognised in central
London, despite many national and publicly funded facilities being located
here, and the few spaces which do exist are too small for minibuses. The
reason given for this is traffic congestion levels, despite the inner-London
congestion-charging scheme being pronounced a resounding success. The
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea continues to refuse to recognise
the European parking scheme on the grounds of traffic congestion, despite
successfully persuading Mayor of London Boris Johnson to remove the borough
from the congestion charge scheme on the grounds that this was unnecessary.

The 'Direct Gov'
Blue Badge Map online and mobile phone service, which helped disabled
Londoners and visitors find out where they can park in London, was cancelled
in June 2010.

Most of London's
car parks have height restrictions which exclude the wheelchair-accessible
vans and minibuses that disabled people rely on.

The main cultural
venue for the Paralympics, the South Bank, which is also a major venue
for the whole of the Cultural Olympiad, is not alone in having significantly
fewer Blue Badge parking spaces available than it did a decade ago.Disabled people who
have enjoyed meeting there for decades now have to stay at home.

The Mayor's HQ, City
Hall, has no nearby Blue Badge parking at all, and the complex it is based
in has no visitors' car park. Disabled people who are unable to use public
transport cannot access the publicly funded exhibitions inside City Hall
and the free performances that take place outside, and must compete for
one of two spaces in the basement if invited to a conference or meeting.Despite this, City
Hall is the venue for 'London House' during the Paralympics.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: Vancouver significantly increased its parking provision for disabled
drivers in the run-up to the Winter Games, and recognises international
disabled parking permits. WHY NOT Extend Blue Badge parking to central
London; reinstate Blue Badge information services; and increase Blue Badge
parking provision across London (including at City Hall)?

ON
THE STREET

Central London has
significantly poorer access to shopping and other facilities than outer
London. The closer you get to the centre of power and wealth – and
tourist attractions – the fewer the number of ramps, dropped kerbs
and lifts.

The new 'Westfield
East', which opened in September 2011 and which every Games-goer has to
walk through to get to the Olympic Park, has also been criticised for
failing to meet its promises on accessibility.

Before its closure,
the Disability Rights Commission found that three-quarters of disabled
people in the UK have difficulty accessing goods and services, primarily
due to steps, heavy doors and a lack of parking and lifts. The majority
of the British public believes that more could be done.

Central London businesses
who want to comply with the law and make access improvements are often
refused permission by Westminster and Camden Councils on the grounds of
protecting our ‘heritage’. This is the case even with temporary
structures, such as covers to prevent wheelchair lifts from being damaged
by the rain. The Government is intending to introduce a 'presumption in
favour of development' for companies wishing to build on 'green belt'
land. Why not a 'presumption in favour of adaptation' for organisations
who wish to comply with the law and people who want to make their homes
accessible?

Dedicated viewing
platforms that allow disabled people to watch events in Trafalgar Square
have been removed over the past year. Visually impaired people and wheelchair
users are now expected to watch events from the top of the steps into
the Square. They are ‘protected’ from falling only by a knee-high
plastic chain-link fence, and with the majority of their ‘view’
obscured by the giant clock that has been counting down to the Games.
The Trafalgar Square lifts between the lower and upper levels are continually
out of order.

The owner of County
Hall – once the home of the Greater London Council and now a major
tourist venue – refuses to allow a wheelchair ramp to be sited outside
of the building. He has also removed the wheelchair lift, replaced the
wheelchair users’ entrance with an office, and refuses to allow
taxis carrying disabled visitors to drop off outside the door. Visitor
attractions like the London Film Museum have to borrow a ramp from the
hotel next door, and remove it again once disabled people are inside.
Despite this, County Hall was used for the 2011 ‘Olympic Legacy’
conference.

London is spending less on
Games-specific access improvements than any other recent Host City.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: Beijing attempted to transform the city's accessibility, including
installing lift access to the Great Wall of China. Athens spent €18
million on access improvements before it hosted the Games. Barcelona was
one of four finalists for the inaugural European Access City of the Year
award in 2010, competed for by 66 cities across Europe.WHY NOT insist
on legal compliance across London; and provide grants to help businesses
achieve this?

STANDARD
OF LIVING

Disabled people and
our families have the lowest incomes of any group in the UK. The equality
gap has grown significantly over the past 30 years.

In the last decade,
disabled Britons of working age saw their income fall from nearly 90%
of the median national income to just 80%.

On average, non-disabled
men in the UK have an income that is twice that of disabled men with social
care and access needs.

In the period 2005-8,
10% of disabled men with social care and access needs had a gross income
including state benefits of less than £59 a week. 10% of disabled
women in this situation had a gross income of less than £31 a week.

Disabled men who
are recognised by the Equality Act but who don't consider themselves to
have significant access needs still have incomes that are 33% lower than
non-disabled men's. Disabled women in this position have incomes that
are 25% lower than non-disabled women's.

National Insurance-funded
disability payments, which used to be paid for an unlimited period, are
now limited to 12 months only. This has left many disabled people without
any income at all.

Disability Living
Allowance, a state-funded payment towards the additional costs of disability,
is being replaced with Personal Independence Payments in 2013. £2
billion - 20% - will be cut from the budget in the process, leaving disabled
people bearing an even higher proportion of the additional costs of living
with disability than they do now.

Overall, despite
being elected on a promise 'to protect the most vulnerable', the Government
plans to cut £9 billion from spending on disabled people in the
life of the current Parliament. The cuts are largely blamed on the impact
of the banking crisis, yet UK bankers took home £14 billion in bonuses
in the last financial year.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: The income gap between London's rich and poor is greater than in
Athens, Barcelona, Seoul, Vancouver, Sydney, Albertville, Lillehammer
and Nagano. In the developed world, only the American host cities and
Turin have a worse record. WHY NOT support disabled people to reverse
benefit cuts, instead of ignoring the interests of more than one in four
Londoners?

JOB
OPPORTUNITIES

Disabled workers
represent one in five of the workforce, but around half are unemployed.

80% of workers have
a job when they become disabled, but only 60% are in work a year later,
and only 36% are in work the year after that.

Unemployed disabled
workers are four times less likely than non-disabled people to find work.
When disabled people do get jobs, one in three are out of work again by
the following year, compared with only a fifth of non-disabled people.

Only 20% of disabled
men claiming Disability Living Allowance and reporting work-limiting access
needs have a job, and they earn 20% less than non-disabled men. Disabled
women in this situation earn 12% less than non-disabled women and than
women who are only "officially" disabled.

The chances of any
low-qualified British disabled man having a job halved between the 1970s
and the 2000s, from 77 per cent to 38 per cent.

More than nine in
ten employers state that they would not employ a worker with a history
of mental illness, even if they have since made a full recovery. Unsurprisingly,
90% of workers with a history of mental illness are unemployed.

Disabled people who
are recognised under the Equality Act but who have no work-limiting access
needs are almost as likely to be employed as non-disabled people, and
receive similar wages. This means that disabled people with work-limiting
access needs are even worse off than the official statistics suggest.

Experiments by charities
have shown that non-disabled people with identical CVs to disabled people
are more than twice as likely to be granted an interviewer with an employer.

The vast majority
of disability related jobs are held by non-disabled people. Disabled people
are left to volunteer in these roles, often on committees and other consultation
groups intended to explain disability issues to the non-disabled professionals.

More than 132,000
public sector jobs were lost last year. For obvious reasons, disabled
people are over-represented in the public sector. Disabled people are
also commonly pressured by employers to resign or make themselves voluntarily
redundant.

Despite all of the
above, the Government is determined to 'encourage' as many disabled people
as possible into employment by cutting benefits further.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: President Obama marked the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) in July 2010 by signing Executive Order 13548,
which calls on federal departments and agencies to increase the recruitment,
hiring and retention of people with disabilities in coming years. The
Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) [there is no UK equivalent]
has been assigned to assist the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
in implementing the directive. In Lillehammer, state employers are required
to interview at least one qualified disabled job applicant if they apply,
and positive discrimination by state employers is legal. WHY NOT institute
a programme to increase the number of disabled City Hall employees and
ensure their support needs are met; and fund an organisation to tackle
discrimination by employers?

AIR
QUALITY

London has the most
polluted air in Europe and this is worsening. In 2011, the annual limit
for particle exposure had been exceeded by April – two months earlier
than in 2010. This limit is already twice the amount recommended as being
safe to breathe by the World Health Organisation.

London faces European
Union fines of £300 million for failing to meet the 2011 deadline
for reducing the city's air pollution to legal limits.

More than 4,000 Londoners,
most of them disabled, die each year as a direct result of air pollution,
losing on average more than 11 years from their lifespan.

London's air pollution
causes asthma, bronchitis and other breathing problems for thousands of
other Londoners, and is particularly harmful to disabled people.

Despite this, Mayor
Boris Johnson has scrapped or delayed some of the planned anti-pollution
measures since coming into office.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: In the last six years, Seoul has replaced 86% of its buses, fitted
162,000 diesel vehicles with emission-lowering devices and reduced congestion
by preventing cars entering the city on days chosen by their owners. Air
quality continues to improve. WHY NOT reinstate plans to improve air quality,
as well as taking further action?

RIGHTS

Disabled people
are the only group of people in the UK who can legally be discriminated
against, with the 'Equality Act' detailing the ways in which this can
be done.

There is no official
body responsible for tackling discrimination against disabled people within
employment, goods and service provision, housing and education. Rather,
it is down to the individuals who are discriminated against to take personal
action to enforce the law.

The Government is
in the process of closing the Equality and Human Rights’ Commission’s
helpline, which provided information about the rights that disabled people
do have and supported them to take individual action.

The Government is
also cutting the Legal Aid funding that provided disabled people with
legal advice and support to enforce their rights.

The Government is
introducing charges for disabled people to take discrimination cases to
Tribunals. This is despite the fact that most claimants will have lost
their jobs, and/or be too ill to work, and will need every penny of any
costs awarded. Discrimination cases are also much longer and more complex
than other Tribunal cases, so it is very hard to win without a solicitor,
while legal fees are extremely high.

The Government recently
included the Equality Act within its 'Red Tape Challenge', a public consultation
aimed at "freeing up business and society from the burden of excessive
regulation" by abolishing or weakening existing legislation.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: President Obama recently extended the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA) to plug perceived gaps. WHY NOT fund an advice and legal service
to ensure that the rights of disabled Londoners are protected?

EDUCATION

The Host Borough
of Newham led the world in introducing inclusive education. However, official
Government policy is now ‘to reverse the bias towards inclusive
education’.

The UK is one of
the few countries to have opted out of the clause within the UN Convention
on the Rights of Disabled People that promises to provide disabled children
with inclusive education.

Segregated or 'special' schools
have been widely criticised for providing social care and childminding
services rather than education.

More than half of
all disabled 16-year-olds are classified as 'NEETs' – Not in Education,
Employment or Training.By
the time they reach their early 20s, disabled young people are still twice
as likely to be NEETs as their non-disabled peers.

More than half of
disabled adults have no qualifications.

Disabled adults with
high access needs – particularly those who also have social care
needs – are signficantly less likely to be highly qualified than
disabled adults who are recognised by the Equality Act but whose impairments
have no impact on the types of work they can do. They are also far more
likely to have been denied access to mainstream education.

Subsidies for part-time
adult education classes, particularly popular with disabled and older
people and our carers, have been largely withdrawn over the past few years,
forcing many to close.

The recent tripling
of university fees will hit disabled students and their families, and
the children of disabled parents, particularly badly. London is already
the most expensive place to study in the UK.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: 72% of disabled adults in the United States have been educated to
at least High School graduate level. WHY NOT work with disabled people
to ensure that best practice standards of inclusive education are introduced
across London; and subsidise further education courses for disabled people
and our families?

HOUSING

London has an acute
shortage of accessible housing. Many disabled young people spend years
in residential care as a result, unable to work or study and often in
facilities aimed at the over-70s.

Only 10% of new London
homes are required by law to be built to a standard that a wheelchair
user could live in. Many Londoners therefore become homeless when they
become disabled.

Charities estimate
that 11,000 young disabled people could become homeless as a result of
planned cuts to Housing Benefit [rent subsidies] from 2013. Most young
disabled people will no longer be allowed to rent a home of their own,
but will be forced to find shared accommodation.

In total, 450,000
disabled people will lose an average of £13 a week as a result of
Housing Benefit cuts, forcing many older disabled people into homelessness
as well.

Many thousands of
disabled people are expected to be forced to leave London altogether as
a result of these cuts.

Thousands of Londoners
have also lost their homes as a result of the Games, as landlords have
evicted them and raised rents in the expectation of visitors wanting short-term
lets.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: London's rents are already higher than in Moscow, Sydney, Vancouver,
Beijing and Athens. Only Tokyo is a more expensive host city to rent in.
WHY NOT increase the percentage of accessible housing being built across
London; and fund new housing developments aimed at disabled young people?

SOCIAL
CARE

In contrast to a
decade ago, the majority of disabled people now receive no support from
their local authorities and are left to manage alone or with only the
support of their families.

The Royal Borough
of Kensington and Chelsea (the richest borough in the UK) recently won
the legal right to leave a disabled woman lying in her bed alone wearing
incontinence pads for 12 hours each day, rather than supplying her with
the help that she needs to use the toilet during the night.The
Borough's decision was upheld by the UK's Supreme Court, despite their
previous ruling that prisoners in Scotland had been robbed of their human
rights by being required to use the toilet in front of other prisoners
and then 'slop out' the next morning.

In 2011, Host Boroughs
Tower Hamlets and Newham suffered the highest cuts to their central Government
grants in the UK. This has inevitably affected the services that they
can provide to disabled people, as well as increasing the cost of these
to disabled people.

The Government has
closed the Independent Living Fund to new applicants, and has only committed
to supporting existing recipients until 2015. Many disabled people will
lose their independence as a result.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: Disabled people in Sweden have access to extensive support services
to enable them to live independently, and are entitled to claim funds
to pay family members if they prefer them to provide support. Disabled
people in Germany have the right to claim the costs of professional support
to cover their unpaid carers' sickness, holidays and respite needs. WHY
NOT demand a minimum standard of appropriate support for disabled Londoners
no matter which borough we live in; and support disabled people's campaign
against the cuts?

CRIME

In September 2011,
the Equality and Human Rights Commission concluded that disabled people
in the UK face harassment, insult and attack almost as a matter of routine,
while a "collective denial" among police, government and other
public bodies means little is done to challenge the situation.

It is a crime to publish material
likely to incite hatred on the grounds of race, but it is not a crime
to publish material likely to incite hatred on the grounds of disability.

The number of disability
hate crimes reported to UK police between 2006 and 2009 rose by 300%,
to 1,402. Yet only 393 people were prosecuted under disability hate crime
legislation, compared to 11,624 people for racial and religiously aggravated
crimes. Officially, 95% of hate crime goes unreported.

People with learning
difficulties frequently experience abuse and violence from their care-givers
within residential and institutional settings.Despite
this, the Government has made widespread cuts to inspections, increasing
disabled people's vulnerability to crime.

According to the
charity Scope, 20% of repeat victims of 'anti-social behaviour' are disabled
people. Scope states that Deaf and disabled people in the UK are regularly
mocked, taunted, robbed, assaulted and harassed. Our homes are attacked;
our cars damaged and the places where we live, work and socialise are
also targeted. In some cases, anti-social behaviour escalates into more
sinister and serious crimes ending in kidnap, rape, torture and murder.

Scope's research
also shows that more than a third of disabled adults have experienced
increased harassment and abuse over the past 12 months. An alliance of
50 charities blame this on the Government's stigmatisation of disabled
people as lazy and dishonest.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: London already has the highest reported crime rate relative to its
population of ANY host city in the world. WHY NOT fund an organisation
to tackle disability hate crime; demand strengthening of hate crime legislation;
oppose cuts to neighbourhood policing; and defend disabled Londoners'
integrity against Government slurs?

DIVERSITY

Disabled people
are over-represented within the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans)
communities, because of the impact of homophobia on mental and physical
health as well as HIV – as many as one in three LGBT people may
be disabled.

The cross-charity
DisLIB (Disability Listen, Include, Build) project – closed in 2011
due to lack of funding – concluded that LGBT and BME (Black and
Minority Ethnic) disabled people's organisations are the most under-funded
and under-resourced of any disabled people's organisations.

Disabled people complain
that access to the annual London ‘Pride’ march and rally has
become increasingly poorer over the past decade, since the event has been
rebranded as a ‘visitor attraction’ (no facilities are provided
for disabled visitors). Only a tiny percentage of people participating
in World Pride 2012 were disabled, with Regard, the national LGBT disabled
people's organisation, deciding it was too dangerous to attempt to access
it.

The Arts Council
recently removed funding from the only accessible London venue with a
regular LGBT programme, the Drill Hall - the venue has now closed altogether.

The London Lesbian
and Gay Film Festival at the South Bank has only minimal access for people
with mobility and sensory access needs.

City Hall has not
funded conferences for BME and LGBT disabled Londoners and for disabled
women since the mid-1990s. Diversity topics have not featured in the Disability
Capital conferences, nor have disabled women featured in the City Hall-funded
women's conferences.

The national equality
organisation Stonewall reports that the only mention of sexual orientation
within Games organisers LOCOG’s activities relates to volunteering.
Stonewall states that community safety and other inclusion issues have
been ignored despite their raising these with the organisers.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: WHY NOT withdraw City Hall funding from LGBT events such as Pride
that fail to be truly inclusive; and ensure that LGBT issues are included
within events aimed at disabled people?

SPORT

Fewer than one in
five disabled Londoners participates regularly in a sporting activity.

Disabled people commonly report
that sports and leisure centres are too expensive for them to use, and
that they cannot afford to buy sporting clothing and equipment.

The majority of
clubs and sports facilities for disabled people are controlled by non-disabled
people, who also like to control the participants.

Britain’s
most internationally famous sporting event, the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis
Tournament, refuses to offer parking concessions to disabled people despite
the nearby stations being inaccessible to people with mobility difficulties.
Blue Badge holders are forced to pay an additional £25 in parking
charges in order to watch the tennis – including the wheelchair
tennis – even if they qualify for free public transport where this
is accessible to them.

Football is the only
sport to have worked extensively with disabled spectators to improve access.

Games organisers
LOCOG have been severely criticised for limiting free companion tickets
for ambulant disabled people to 10 per venue per event, including for
the 85,000-seater main stadium.They
have also been criticised for failing to seat wheelchair users next to
the rest of their party, splitting families and on occasion leaving children
to sit on their own.

LOCOG also failed
to notice that, while over-60s were supposed to be able to buy discounted
tickets for some Paralympic events, the ticketing website only offered
one full-price option for all wheelchair users. In many cases the difference
in price was 400% (e.g. £5 for other senior citizens but £20
for all wheelchair users).

Games' sponsors have
thousands of free tickets to give away. However, none have been allocated
to the hundreds of disabled people who have given up their time over the
past few years in an effort to make the Games as inclusive and accessible
as organisers LOCOG will allow.

Games organisers
LOCOG have been severely criticised by disabled people for appointing
Atos Origin as an official sponsor. Atos Healthcare, a division of Atos
Origin, carries out the controversial 'fitness for work' tests on behalf
of the Government. Many of their decisions have been overturned on appeal,
costing the taxpayer millions of pounds in extra administration costs.
In the meantime, thousands of disabled people have had to survive without
the benefits they are entitled to. TV presenter and former commentator
Steve Cram has also been criticised for a lack of solidarity with Paralympic
athletes for becoming Atos's 2012 "ambassador".

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: New US legislation requires sports facilities to ensure that disabled
spectators have equal access to seats and facilities.WHY NOT take
the lead on insisting that London's sports facilities and sporting events
are truly inclusive for both spectators and participants?

ARTS

Within the arts
organisations that the Arts Council funds on a regular basis, only 3%
of permanent staff, 1% of contractual staff and 4% of Board members are
disabled.

Only 50% of disabled
people attend at least one arts event a year, compared to 70% of the population
as a whole.

£83 million
is being spent on the Cultural Olympiad, but only £3 million of
this is going to the ‘Unlimited’ fund for disabled artists.
The majority of Unlimited funding is actually going to non-disabled people
too, since disabled artists were encouraged to bid jointly with non-disabled
people as well as working with non-disabled support workers and technicians.

For theGames
themselves, the Unlimited commissions are being shown at the Southbank
Centre, although it has continually been criticised for being inaccessible
to disabled people. Ticket prices have been set at £10-plus, although
this is beyond the reach of the vast majority of us. The Arts Council
provided the Southbank Centre, which already receives a huge amount of
public subsidy, with additional funds for the Unlimited season. However,
they refused to fund the free festival being organised in Newham for the
Paralympics, even though Newham has the lowest level of arts engagement
in the country and is the main host borough.

Neither the arts
commissions for the Olympic Park, nor the Cultural Olympiad poster commissions,
nor the creative roles in the opening and closing ceremonies, were advertised
to allow disabled people to compete for them.

Only 100 out of the
3000 volunteer performers at the Paralympic ceremonies will be disabled.
To apply, performers had to have "huge amounts of energy", as
directors opted for intensive, last-minute rehearsals.

Widespread cuts
were made to the Disability Arts sector nationally in order to pay for
the Games.This
included the closure of London’s Disability Arts Forum, responsible
for the London International Disability Film Festival, Art Disability
Culture magazine and a month-long London Disability Arts Festival
– all of which would normally have been expected to form the core
of the Paralympic Cultural Olympiad. The National Disability Arts Forum
and the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive were also closed.

The Arts Council’s policy
is now to ‘mainstream’ disabled people. This involves handing
over public money to organisations with no disabled staff and no experience
of working with disabled people, in the belief that this is superior to
disabled-led work. Although the Arts Council is now responsible for ensuring
that Article 30 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People
is implemented, which gives us the right to equal access to the arts as
well as to be resourced to organise and participate in our own cultural
activities, this policy remains unchanged.

BBC Ouch, the interactive
home of disabled people on the web, was closed in July 2011. Disabled
people are now running their own unofficial message boards at http://forum4.aimoo.com/OuchToo

For the first time,
there was not a single speech, presentation or session on disability art
and culture at the Mayor's Disability Capital conference at Excel in October
2011. Similarly, at the Arts Council England's annual State of the Arts
conference in February, there was no mention of disability, and no BSL
interpretation, audio-description or Palantype.

BORIS
TAKE NOTE: Sydney hosted a two-week Paralympic Arts Festival with venues
throughout the city. The Australian Government recently announced $500,000
of additional funding for Arts Access Australia. WHY NOT insist that public
funding is withdrawn from arts organisations which fail to be truly inclusive;
and reinstate the Disability Arts sector with some of the savings made?

MEDIA
& COMMUNICATIONS

In October 2011, a report
commissioned by Inclusion London found a marked deterioration in media
portrayals of disabled people between 2004/5 and 2010/11. In a
study of five major newspapers, the Sun, the Mirror, The Daily Express,
The Mail and the Guardian, mentions of disabled people increased by a
third. However, there was a marked reduction in articles portraying disabled
people as deserving of support, in genuine need of services or describing
their daily experience. Instead, disabled people are increasingly being
portrayed as benefit cheats and burdens on society.

When the 2012 logo
was launched, it was heavily criticised for not taking into account accessibility.
The broadcast version actually breached rules aimed at ensuring that broadcast
images do not cause epileptic
fits. Click
here to read further criticisms.

Games organisers
LOCOG told one of their contractors there was no need to make official
films inclusive, since access could be ‘added on’ afterwards.
This followed complaints about the inaccessibility of films being screened
at the launch of LOCOG's 2011 Diversity Week. Disabled Londoners question
whether LOCOG's films are commonly screened without 'add-ons'.

Olympic architects
Populous and Deputy Mayor Richard Barnes were caught red-faced at the
Mayor's Disability Capital conference at Excel in October 2011. Barnes
had to promise to withdraw a film about the accessible and inclusive nature
of the Olympic Park both during and after the Games when it turned out
not to have sub-titles or BSL interpretation, nor to include any images
of disabled people.

Paralympic Games
coverage is being handled by Channel 4 sport, best known for their horse
racing programmes. Promising 'to target new audiences for disability sport',
they launched their Games coverage with a TV marketing campaign called
'Freaks of Nature'. Subsequent programmes have largely been screened within
their weekend 'yoof TV' slots.

Apart from the BBC,
'freak show' programming is endemic in British programming. Other Channel
4 series include 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Seven Dwarfs' and 'The Undateables'.

Making fun of disabled
people within television and radio comedy has also become increasingly
common over the past few years, including on the BBC. In terms of Paralympic
broadcaster Channel 4, in 2010 they refused to apologise when 'comedian'
Frankie Boyle made a 'joke' that model Katie Price's son, as a black disabled
boy, posed a sexual threat to her. In the ensuing row, it turned out that
Channel 4 Chief Executive David Abraham had personally approved the broadcast.
This seems to have given other 'comedians' the green light. In October
2011, Ricky Gervais was unrepentant in his repeated use of the word 'mong'
on Twitter despite protests from people with learning difficulties.Gervais later called
the singer Susan Boyle, who has learning difficulties, "a f-ing mong"
on Channel 4 with their blessing.

BORIS TAKE
NOTE: It may be too late to demand that Games organisers LOCOG put equality
and inclusion at the heart of their communications strategy, but it's
not too late for you to change your own strategy, including putting BSL
and sub-titles on your own official videos and campaigning for improvements
in media coverage of disabled people.